What Do You Do When The You-Know-What Hits The Fan?

Well…I wish I knew the answer to that one. I’m an expert in needing to know the answer because lately, I really have been asking the question.

About a year ago I found out that my best friend had developed breast cancer. Not the kind where we take a little tumor out and you go home and all is well. No the kind where we give you chemo from hell and then cut you breast off and then burn up your skin with radiation leaving you with an opening in your chest which has not healed yet! This was the major train wreck of cancer with spots on the skull and spine now! The “let’s do some more testing and see” kind of cancer. The BIG one. The kind that only the very best in medical treatment and the hand of the Goddess can save you from.

At the time that we found out about the cancer I was working at a good job bringing in a nice paycheck. I was a trained professional working in a field that after many years of study I was finely comfortable in. I felt that I was an important part of the corporate structure and was really doing really good work for my employer. I had the world by the tail. I was the “go to person” in my department and knew all the answers. Man, was I dumb.

I wanted to do all I could for my best friend and spend as much time with her as I could but I couldn’t see how I could be of much help with my busy work schedule. I was the big important working woman with clients who needed me.

I asked the Goddess to help me with this problem. Well…the Goddess answered me in a way that rattled me to my core. My boss named one of our own to the job of “Office Manager” a title of far reaching power, earning much respect. One of the first things my new office god did was fire me.

Well…I was devastated!!!! I have been in the work force for over thirty years and have never missed a paycheck! I lived to be over fifty years old and now I’m fired!!! I cried and I have to admit that I thought about doing bad magic on my dear old work mate. Really bad!!! I didn’t. I know that some of you think I’m a wimp and I probably am but I just couldn’t waste any more energy on that job or the people I was working with. Then what was the Goddess thinking? I am the major “bread winner” for this family. How were we going to live on just my husband’s payday?

Then, my husband who was working at a job that we knew was shaky at best got fired the very next week! He has a medical condition which makes a lot of jobs something he just can’t do. We were lucky when he found the job he had and that he was able to stay there for over seven years. He was able to keep his medical insurance so that the two recent medical disasters he has been through didn’t send us into bankruptcy. That was a total blessing but man we were in a fix!

Thanks to the economy being down the tubes we went on unemployment and that with my cashed out 401K has gotten us through so far. Don’t get me wrong I am looking for a job and would love to go to work today! I started looking for employment the very day I was fired but haven’t had any luck. I know that you hear that the unemployed are just setting at home eating bon-bons but I want to work and am doing everything I can to get a job. I’m even starting back to college this fall in order to upgrade my skills for a better chance of employment.

Well… back to my best friend. Because of my sudden lack of employment guess who was able to go with her for her chemo treatments….stay with her during surgery…..go over to her house to pack her open chest wound twice a day. Me! Talk about the Goddess taking care of a situation! I guess you could even look to “the book” and reference the tale of the corner stone being the one the others threw away. I was so happy to be there for her!!! I know that I am not a trained health care professional but I was there and am still there when she needs me. I hope that the fact that she could and did call me at anytime and I’d be right there helped her get through this horror.

Well…. like I said I could really use the answer to the question. I am still not employed and still looking for a job but I have gotten over the “corporate ego” thing and hopefully will never have that sickness again. The time I spent with my buddy packing a gaping chest hole has caused me to think that I could do that for others, so, I have applied for nursing school at the local community college. I know that I am older that dirt but I still have some good years left in me and I’m not the kind of gal to call it quits just because I reach retirement age.

My best friend is getting better and our hope is that we have her with us for a very long time. She still has an open chest wound that the doctor just put a wound-vac on. That and daily visits to a hyperbolic chamber will hopefully clear up that part of her problem. The doctors will still be looking after her for a long time and I will too. The Goddess was no doubt listening in on my thoughts when this whole thing started and fixed it so that I could help my friend and like I said, teach me a lesson that I needed too.

And about the sh*t…Well…The best thing I can think of to do is dig a hole and plant roses. When the roses bloom I will give some to my husband who I love and cherish even through he is not in the best of health and not working, my best friend to brighten up her day and I will keep some for me. After all of this I deserve them.

P.S. I’ll dig more holes so that I’ll be ready for the next time the you- know-what hits the fan.